Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says recent calls for terrorist attacks at Australian landmarks should be taken seriously.

The threats have been played down by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and by the State’s police commissioner but not by the Prime Minister, who said recent attacks around the world showed the danger of so-called lone wolf terrorists.

Speaking in Laos, Mr Turnbull said the calls for violence in Australia represented desperation on the part of the Islamic extremists.

“As Daesh (Islamic State) comes under more and more pressure on the battlefield in Syria and in Iraq — as it is rolled back, as its territory is being taken back — it will resort to terrorist activities outside of the Middle East,” he said.

“The capacity of Daesh, of course, is much less than they proclaim it to be.”

“But we do have to be very alert to the actions of these lone actors — individuals who, as I’ve described in the national security statement last week, for a variety of reasons, may be radicalised.

Farhad Mohammad, the teenager who shot dead police accountant Curtis Cheng in Sydney last year. Photo: ABC News.

“(They are) often associated with mental illness, frankly, can be radicalised very quickly and engage in very destructive, lethal conduct, as we saw in Nice, for example.”

Leave the worrying to police: security expert

Police job National security expert Greg Barton, of Deakin University, played down the news saying the calls were a reminder that IS was under pressure and, so, resorting to propaganda.

“They’ve got this new magazine in seven languages, in each of those seven language groups, they’re naming local places,” Mr Barton said.

“So I think that’s why we’re not feeling too worried about the naming of Broadmeadows and Brunswick and Bondi and Bankstown but at the same police behind the scenes are working hard.

“It’s not something the general public should spend a lot of time worrying about. It’s something the authorities and police should worry about.”

– ABC